


The Keys to Your Heart

by Engineer104



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Classical Music, F/M, Maybe a little OOC, Music, One innuendo, Riza is the daughter of a virtuoso pianist, Roy is a prodigy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1964529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Engineer104/pseuds/Engineer104
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riza, the only daughter of a traveling pianist, thinks this might be either the worst or the best night of her life.  There is no in-between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Keys to Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've published Royai apart from a little, incomplete snippet on my tumblr, so please be kind.
> 
> Cheesy title from Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door”.
> 
> AU from http://scamdal.tumblr.com/post/89462918083/you-want-more-aus-ill-give-you-more-aus-met (but I took liberties obviously)
> 
> Sorry if it’s a little out of character.
> 
> I might make this a multi-chapter deal but I doubt it.

_“Music when you want it!  Silence when you need it!”_ the hotel website declared at the top of the page about entertainment.  Unfortunately, the latter statement was proving a blatant lie.

Riza sighed into her pillow, cursing the thin walls and thinner floor that did nothing to block out the obnoxious tinkling of the lobby piano.  It didn’t help that the song was far too lively and _loud_ to be mistaken for a lullaby.  She scowled, turned her head to glance at the bedside clock, and grimaced when she saw it was already three.

She looked over at the other bed, noting how her father’s profile rose and fell regularly; clearly _he_ had no trouble falling asleep, although that didn’t really surprise her.  The man ate and breathed piano; apparently he slept it too.

With an impatient huff, Riza moved her feet to the floor and stood.  Undeterred by the sudden wave of dizziness at her speedy standing, she grabbed her sneakers, shoving them onto her feet without bothering with socks and tying the laces, and reached for her pink hoodie, shrugging it on despite the day-old coffee stain on the hem.

She put her hand on the doorknob, running through a mental list in case she forgot something, then reached to pick up the key card for her (hopefully quick) return.  She bent down and slipped it into her shoe, not trusting the shallow pockets in her jacket, and opened the door.

Riza blinked for a few seconds, adjusting to the sudden brightness of the hallway, then proceeded a short ways to the stairs since she didn’t have the patience to wait for an elevator (it was only one floor down anyway).  She jogged down, skipping a few steps in her eagerness to tell off the late-night pianist, ignoring the fact that he was actually quite good and currently playing a Mozart sonata that she actually quite liked.

After shoving the door from the stairwell open, she immediately stalked over to the nearby, half-empty lounge, paying no mind to the bouncer that attempted to stop her (she was obviously underage), and, in a show of boldness, sat down on the bench right beside the musician and, in a perfectly measured tone, said, “You know, some people are trying to sleep.”

To her utmost shock, he paid her no mind, even when she tapped him on the shoulder.  He just continuing his piece, and unwittingly, her gaze fell onto his large hands, how his slender fingers danced across the keys, barely brushing them when he played short, quiet notes and practically crushing them down for the long, forceful ones.  To Riza’s semi-practiced eye, his hands were perfect for the instrument, his left extending to build chords an entire octave wide while his right flitted around the high notes, dancing between the black and white keys without the slightest hesitation.  The bench even shifted slightly with the regular movement of his foot at the pedal.

She lifted her eyes to his face, shocked to see that his expression was simply a frown of concentration, exhibited by a slight furrowing of his brow.  There was no emotion, no passion for the notes, even though he played energetically and beautifully; she would’ve been fooled if she wasn’t watching him.

Riza studied the form of his thin, frowning lips, noting how his black hair was long enough to brush his eyes and ears.  From the slight roundness of his face and the scrawniness of his build, she guessed he must be young, eighteen at most, sixteen (her age) at least.

She smirked, wondering how he managed to get a job in a lounge that obviously only allowed adults.

Naturally, the bouncer approached her at that moment.  “I know he’s a cute virtuoso and all, but you’re obviously not twenty-one,” he accused Riza.  He motioned towards the way she came.  “Scram.”

“I’m not here to drink,” Riza pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“Isn’t it too late to flirt?”

“Isn’t it too late to play sonatas at that volume?”

Riza and the bouncer glared at each other for a moment, both too preoccupied with their faceoff to notice that the young pianist had finished his sonata and turned his body and head to scrutinize them.

“How long have you been sitting there?” he wondered, voice rather perplexed.

The bouncer visibly flinched, while Riza simply stood up from the bench.  “Long enough to hear that you’re really good but have no sense of time,” she told the musician, making sure to level a powerful glare at him.

“My tempo wasn’t _that_ bad. . .” he muttered to himself, looking at the keys and brushing an invisible speck of dust off of middle C.

“No, idiot,” Riza said irritably.  She pointed to the clock hanging over the bar, and as the pianist followed her gaze, his face morphed into the most perfect look of surprise she had ever seen.  His mouth formed a comical “O”, and his thin blue eyes were wide as he returned them to hers.

“You need to leave,” the bouncer said wearily.  When Riza continued to pay him no mind, he sighed and trudged off to the lounge entry.

“Huh, I didn’t realize it was that late,” the virtuoso confessed sheepishly.  He ran his long fingers through his hair.

The motion was strangely mesmerizing, but Riza commented, “You can’t have played a nocturne instead?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t like slow songs,” he said with a slight smile.  “They bore me.”

“You live life in the _allegro_ lane, huh?”  She raised an eyebrow at him.

Her half-hearted joke was granted a laugh as lively as his playing.  “You could say that.”  He held out his right hand, presumably for Riza to shake.  “I’m Roy,” he introduced, continuing to smile.

She didn’t hesitate to take his hand.  “Riza,” she replied, offering him a smile of her own.

“So you like piano, huh?” he said, a little lamely.

“I have to admit, Roy, that I like sleep just a bit more,” she commented dryly.

Roy – she decided the name suited him – laughed again.  “Well, Riza, I do get sucked into the music when I’m playing and lose track of time if I don’t have a metronome.”

“Hmm, you’re good,” Riza admitted, sliding her finger along the highest white key and getting a muted chime for her trouble.  “You’re _really_ good, actually.”

“You think so?” Roy said, his face hopeful.

“Yeah, definitely,” she confirmed with a nod.  Then, she frowned slightly.  “Sorry, I’m not, like, a talent agent or anything.”

Roy shrugged.  “I know,” he said with a wry smile.  “It’s just nice to get compliments.”

Riza hummed, but it wasn’t really in agreement.  Then, struck by sudden – and potentially regrettable – inspiration, she burst out, “Wait here!”

“Okay. . .”

She bent down, pulled her key card from her sneaker (which elicited a chuckle from Roy), stood, and sprinted back to the stairs, daringly showing the bouncer her middle finger when he yelled at her to “walk in the lobby” (it was late/early, she had to be up in just a few hours, and he was really pissing her off).  She took the steps two at a time, hurriedly rushing onto the landing, and barely slowed to swipe the card to get in.

Unsurprisingly, her father was still sound asleep as she walked in, even though she wasn’t taking care to walk quietly.  She fumbled around in the dark for a bit before she found his wallet on the dresser, set beside his mobile phone.  She unsnapped the Velcro and reached into the cash pocket and pulled out a small card of thick paper, smoothing her fingers over the smooth surface.  Grinning in triumph, she returned to the door, swinging it open and letting it go, hearing the soft _click_ of the lock as she ventured back down the hall.

When she returned to the lobby lounge, Roy was still seated on the bench, but he was facing opposite the piano, its keys, as she noticed, now covered, while he leaned forward with his hands on his knees.  He straightened up when he caught her eye, however.

“Here,” Riza said, passing him the card.

He accepted it, his curiosity transforming into confusion.  “ _Berthold Hawkeye, Professional Concert Pianist,_ ” he read.  His mouth fell open.

(This guy, it seemed to Riza’s utmost amusement, was full of cartoony expressions.)

“You know _Berthold Hawkeye_?” Roy demanded, standing up from his perch.  He looked between the business card and her, continually gaping.

“He’s my father,” Riza confessed with a shrug.  “He’s on a tour now, and I travel with him.  He had a show last night.”

Roy stared at her.  “I wanted to go to that show,” he said, “but I couldn’t afford tickets.”  He waved the card around, his face becoming gleeful.  “Riza, can I call him?”

Riza smiled at him.  “That _is_ why I gave you the card, Roy.”

He continued to look pleased.  “This is great!” he said happily.  “Just imagine what he can teach me!”

Riza couldn’t help but be enthused by his eagerness, but she had to say, “He can probably start with your stage presence.”

“What do you mean by that?” Roy wondered, tone wary.

“Well, your face was a little. . .wooden when you were playing.”

Roy scowled.  “I was concentrating.  I _just_ mastered that piece.”

“All right, all right,” Riza said, waving her hands consolingly, and, boldly and fighting a blush, she smirked and added, “I guess you need to show me your skills again once you’re a little more experienced.” 

Roy’s face reddened slightly, but he simply slipped the card into his pocket and said, “I’ll be looking forward to that.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song I imagined Roy playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqwMT5tCu7E (Mozart’s Sonata in C, or one of them at least). I can play the first movement myself, but I’m nowhere near as talented as that guy (or Roy, I suppose, but he’s only as good as my image of him; muahahaha).
> 
> “Allegro” is a musical tempo and Italian for “fast”. It’s actually the tempo for the first movement of the sonata above.
> 
> A nocturne is more or less a lullaby, literally a song you play at night (hence the prefix “noct”).
> 
> Metronomes are devices that are cool in theory but annoying practice. Just look it up in an app store or something. They’re used to measure and help keep track of tempo, especially while learning a song.
> 
> Constructive criticism and comments of any kind are welcome. =]
> 
> If you wanna talk about music, FMA, what I did wrong here, or whatever, I have a tumblr: stereotypedebunker.tumblr.com


End file.
